Day 1

apps for car computers (the car industry is slow in adopting new technologies, Ford is leading in this regard)

perceptual computing – controlled by eye/hand tracking

Low cost tablets are the next big thing – they’re selling in Asia right now in tens of millions for $100, they will be many people’s first computer. There are countless producers you haven’t heard about selling countless models, some of which sell as many devices as Apple.

Smartphone and tablet OS market share in Asia is around 85-95% Android, only 4-5% iOS (but even if iOS global market share will be 10-15%, it won’t be a problem for Apple).

“Ideas don’t matter, it’s all about execution” – not really, ideas matter too. People won’t buy an awesomely implemented but useless app. Idea by itself doesn’t matter a lot, but it’s the foundation of your app.

“Languages” made as much money in one day as “Grades” made in 2 years – the difference was the idea.

What can YOU make better than anyone else? What knowledge, experience, resources, connections you have that others don’t? Can you build it for yourself, to solve your own problem?

A good app has a clear message and purpose – you should be able to explain your app’s purpose in one sentence. How are your users going to describe it when they share it with others? Why is it valuable to people? This helps you focus.

Design also matters. It’s hard to get noticed, so micro-ideas are important (how interface works, how easy the app is to use).

Barnes&Noble (NOOK Apps) – smaller, but people are used to spending money

Windows Phone Store, BlackBerry World – probably won’t take off, “the train has left the station”

Rovio made 50 apps that weren’t a success until they made Angry Birds.

There are ~800,000 apps on every app store, so there’s a pretty good chance there’s already an app that does what you want to do, even for niche apps, and lots of them are free (especially on Android).

Once you’re at the top, it’s easy to fall quickly.

60% of apps don’t break even, less than 12% earn more than $50K.

The bar is set high so aim high, you can’t aim for the middle. You have to make a lot of effort to make the app perfect. Awesome UI and UX means everything, you have to spend a lot of time on this.

Marketing is important; top apps spend 14% of time on average on marketing.

Getting on the top list is important. Also, if you get there before Christmas, you stay there for a week or two because the list is frozen (and it’s a period when a lot of people get new devices).

Avoid those categories where there’s a lot of competition.

Making the app cheaper doesn’t always mean it will be downloaded more, it’s not as simple, so you might make less if you lower the price. Check the statistics.

Freemium makes a lot of money now, but it’s not always the right answer. People still pay for apps, subscription might be a good idea too depending on the type of the app.

App stores don’t need to be your only channel, you can try to sell the app directly too (if the device/OS allows it).

Don’t just hire all great developers, hire people you’d like to work with. You want fixers, people who get irritated quickly and start fixing things.

“There are thousands of developers who are extremely smart and talented. All of whom I would never, ever hire here.” – @kneath

“Any time you interview a potential hire, you need to ask yourself not only if they’re talented or collaborative but also if they’re capable of literally running this company, because they will be.” – Valve

Diverse groups are more creative than homogenous groups.

Be flexible (location, hours, workload etc.).

Intel Macs were initially developed by one Apple engineer that went to the east coast and worked remotely because of family matters. If Apple didn’t let him do that, it’s possible that we wouldn’t have Intel Macs now, and we probably wouldn’t have iPhones either (or Androids).

Be genuinely excited as a company about the things you work on, blog about any small improvements etc. Make some noise and buzz, make people excited before the launch.

“People on the internet are dicks” – you should try not to care about them. Care about your fans, people who actually use your product, but not about haters and skeptics who might use it if you add something but probably won’t anyway (be wary of “if”).

You can buy a lot of Wifi/bluetooth connected things: light bulbs, door locks, heaters, etc. You can e.g. turn off the lights from the terminal, or turn them to red when there’s an error on production.

Not everyone has a smartphone. Facebook for old Nokia feature phones – 80 mln active users.

Users might not care that the network is down now, don’t disturb them with a huge error message that blocks everything. Connection problems are inherent in wireless communications, if your app can’t handle that gracefully, people won’t use it.

If you don’t do it right, people will notice. People have an intolerance for bad experiences.

Facebook started to get 4x as many users immediately after they switched from the hybrid HTML5 app to the fully native app.

Mobile apps are internet apps, everything is connected to some API. A smartphone is not very useful without Internet connection.

The more efficient we make something, the more it will be used, so we’ll end up using more of it in total (gas, coal, but also information).

People looking at their phones will be a thing our generation is remembered for.

IPv6 gives us an unimaginable amount of IP addresses, so in future everything will have an address, everything will be connected

If your value is the content, make a responsive website; if your value is interaction, make an app. (But don’t treat it as a fight between good and evil, just use the right tool or even mix them if you need.)